


these lifeless things

by aphelius



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Body Horror, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Existential Loneliness, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Post Apocalypse, Slow Burn, Sokka (Avatar) Needs a Hug, Suicidal Thoughts, bad language, oh my, ozai being a terrible parent, zombie film level gore and violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-17 07:01:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29589006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aphelius/pseuds/aphelius
Summary: It’s been twenty-five months, two weeks and five days since Sokka has last seen his family.Surviving in the apocalypse isn’t easy - particularly when you are by yourself - but when he meets a mysterious survivor, Zuko, thing’s get a lot more complicated. Both looking to escape their demons, they first have to learn how to survive together as they cross the country in search of Sokka’ sister, as they constantly butt heads. But things are made more complicated, when Sokka discovers Zuko is hiding some dark secrets that threaten both their lives, and potentially the worlds’. The two survivors must avoid zombies, other survivors, and Zuko’s own father.(This fic is a quiet exploration of Zuko and Sokka’s relationship as they grow from hating one another but being bonded in a mutual desire to survive, to caring deeply for one another. It features body horror and experimentation, learning what it means to live instead of just survive, and apocalypse appropriate violence.)
Relationships: Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 39





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> in which our boys have gone through shit and are very tired
> 
> \-----------------------------------------------
> 
> cw: suicidality. (this fic isn't full written so i will be adding to this list with time if the need arises. if you have any questions about triggers, you can message me on tumblr @aceraphaelsantiagos or leave a comment here)
> 
> \------------------------------------------------
> 
> i've never actually been a very big fan of apocalyptic fiction, but it turns out working in the nhs during a pandemic makes you have Thoughts and Feelings about such things. a huge huge thanks to the lovely @voicefullofmoney for beta reading this, she is the pinnacle of incredible world-building ideas and has such great patience for my anxious messages <3 
> 
> enjoy!

The house is frightening in its normality.

Light, airy curtains flutter in the late evening breeze, offering non-existent passersby glimpses of the room within. The ebbing glow of the sunset warms the clean, square sofas dusted with tasteful throw pillows, all clustered around a flat-screen TV, that is littered with knick-knacks on either side. Candles. Family photographs. Glass ornaments that glow like fire in the sunset light.

Drifting lazily through the air, the dust motes dance in the easy silence. The house is peaceful. At rest.

Through it, Sokka stalks silently, blood-stained and filthy.

A serrated knife grasped tightly in his fist, he pads from room to room. His slow, deliberate steps are whispers in the quiet, and he carefully scans each room wide-eyed, ears cocked for the slightest disturbance. Systematically, he checks in every cupboard, behind every sofa, upstairs and down, sweeping each room in its entirety. His tense breath stabs into the omnipresent hush of the house - a danger he tries to minimise as best he can by sucking the air in carefully through his teeth.

The house is oddly pristine and perfect. Seemingly looters haven’t made their way over this way so far, otherwise this place would have been upended - curtains torn down for bandages and repairs, shelves smashed into shards for firewood - and yet it remains, standing proud, a perfect time capsule of an era long past.

Sokka steps to the left of a single suitcase lying abandoned in the hallway, circling back around to where his search began. Only now after his meticulous scoping out of the house, does Sokka allow himself to incrementally relax. Not fully, never fully. But, assured in the knowledge that he is, at least, alone.

It’s time to weigh up his options. Upstairs is always safer than downstairs. Sure, downstairs has the benefit of two doors and any number of windows to haul ass out of (should the need arise) but camping out upstairs gives him a few precious moments warning of danger making its way towards him - as it always inevitably does. And besides, time had been kind to this house; the floorboards should still be able to hold him.

Sokka is tired.

Bone-deep tired. The kind of tired that throbs in your hands and joints. The kind of tired that makes you want to curl into a ball and sleep for three days straight. Instead, Sokka unravels a trip wire from his rucksack pocket, stringing it carefully across the front door way, and again by the back door, before setting up a stack of cans, each filled with pebbles, on the stairway. Hands steady, each can is towered atop the other, no jingle of stone against tin to be heard.

Finally satisfied, Sokka shuffles his way into the front bedroom and rests his rucksack against the door jamb.

It’ll do.

Should Sokka need to scram, the bedroom’s window is positioned close enough to the garage that he can throw himself out and run without too much of a worry. If he’s lucky, he won’t even twist an ankle when he slams into the corrugated iron sheets of the garage roof.

The carpet is thick, and puffs out a heady cloud of dust when Sokka settles against it. Legs tucked up against him, forehead flat to the floor, he tucks himself into a child’s pose stretch; he sits and breathes. He sits here for a long time.

-.-

Sokka hauls himself vertical once again, muscles groaning in protest.

He has jobs to do. First, he needs to eat.

There was no point sitting around waiting for something to go wrong. He’s done his checks. He’s laid his traps. Fear might make it damn difficult to look after himself, but at least he can eat, safe in this empty house.

With a painful slowness, Sokka unclips the belt from around his backpack and opens it up. Jerky and a packet of dried raisins on the menu tonight.

He whips out a cloth, shaking out its folds, and tucks it into his shirt collar.

“Ah bonjour, mesdames et messieurs,” he declares to the room at large.

He knows this quasi-safety won’t last, he might as well make the most of it.

“The chef has a truly splendid treat for you folks tonight, so hold on to your socks and prepare to be amazed, as we present your dinner. Only the finest-” He flips the packet over. “-ribeye steak for the young lady, aged to perfection and dehydrated using the most cutting-edge techniques known to culinary science.”

He snorts at himself, and rips the packet open with his teeth, looking around the room as he slowly munches.

Now that he isn’t flicking his eyes around, searching for the next threat, he is able to properly appreciate his surroundings.

It’s tastefully decorated, mostly in the beiges and browns that allude to a guest bedroom: a paper lantern-style lamp shade filmed over with dust, a wooden wardrobe hanging slightly ajar, and a photo collage of a smiling family hanging over the bed.

But what his eyes stop at, is a mirror hanging on the far wall. The frame is bright pink, covered in glitter, and puffy stickers at jaunty angles are tessellated around the edge.

Chucking his empty wrapper on the floor, he drifts over to it, fingers skimming over its exuberant decoration.

It’s funny, he used to flinch when he saw his reflection flash past as he walked along a street, would spin around, expecting to see another alive face staring back at him. He doesn’t jump now, though, like he once might have done. There isn’t ever any other hollow eyes blinking across the darkness between them. He has long since given up hope for that.

The room feels too small for him.

Sokka swallows, throat clicking loudly in the silence. All rooms feel too small for him now. It feels unnatural to be enclosed in a confined space, the domesticity of it stings. He doesn’t belong in houses like this anymore.

Breathe.

Second, he needs to scrub himself up a bit. Sokka hadn’t bothered checking the taps during his lap around the building - there is no way this place was still going to have running water, and besides, the groans the pipes would have make should he try would have been a siren call to any wandering nasties outside.

Instead, Sokka has to make to do. He bares his teeth in the mirror, casting a wary eye across them. They’re okay, just a smattering of yellow scudge around his gums that Sokka picks out with his nails, before he hacks up a dollop of saliva that he uses to scrub into his teeth in a vain effort to clean them.

He hums an old ditty his mum liked to sing at bath time when he and Katara were little.

“ _Keep young and beautiful_

_It's your duty to be beautiful_

_Keep young, beautiful_

_If you want to be loved_ ”

He flashes his teeth at himself one last time, before nodding, satisfied, and collapsing onto the bed next to him.

Closes his eyes, lets the quiet press in around him.

_Twenty five months, two weeks and five days._

Twenty five months, two weeks and five days since he’s seen his little sister, seen his dad. Eighteen months, give or take, since he has last had a friendly conversation with another human being. That had been with Yue. Sokka makes a point of not thinking about how that ended.

Instead of lingering on old faces, whose details are slowly fading into the blurry mess of memory, Sokka makes a point of remembering tiny, insignificant snippets of the way life was Before Everything Happened. Today, he walks himself through his old favourite film, clawing on to every line and scene he can think of. It doesn’t matter if it’s in order, in fact it hardly ever is. His brain leaps across plot-lines and character arcs, digging up each remembered detail like an ancient relic, each one locking together like old jigsaw pieces, a link to the scene before. It’s like watching a film in reverse, in a way. Launching backwards at each remembered detail - stepping stones into the past.

It’s getting late. The moon has already crept high into the sky, and it provides a faint beam of light for Sokka to undress for bed. He keeps his boots on - it’s uncomfortable and sore, hell even wearing shoes in a house rankles, let alone in bed - but given how long it takes to lace them up tightly, it’s a luxury he can’t afford himself. Instead, he shucks his jacket off, laying it next to his spot on the left side of the bed and tucks his knife away within its folds.

He always feels vaguely guilty about the mess he trudges into these shells of homes, of the grimey stains his battered jacket leaves on pale bedding. The old thing has served him well, bloodstained and slashed as it is. That’s the beauty of leather - doesn’t matter if you’re hopped up on crazy killer juice, it’s still pretty tough to bite through it with human teeth.

Flipping onto his side, Sokka settles in to sleep. The bed smells of dust.

Sokka dreams of nothing.

-.-

A scream pierces the still air.

Sokka flings himself awake, hand reaching automatically to the serrated knife at his bedside. There is no grogginess, just action. He can’t afford the luxury of missed seconds.

It’s the scream of a dead man.

He can tell this for a number of reasons. Firstly, calling it a scream is a bit generous - it’s more like a gurgling shout, high in pitch. Secondly, there is no emotion behind it. It’s not a scream of terror, or of delight, or of anything in between. It’s just an animalistic noise being wrenched from a decaying body’s throat. An expulsion of gas and sound, nothing more.

The dead man cries out again, though the sound isn’t coming from the house, thank God. Sokka can hear that it’s coming from out in the street. Its raspy gurgle echoes in the street, reverberating down the row of surrounding houses. Even still, it’s far too close for comfort.

Silently rising off the mattress, Sokka pulls on his jacket and pack with practised movements and steals across the room, knife in hand.

He inches his way over to the window, peeking out onto the street below, careful to keep his body hidden. It doesn’t take long for him to spot a shambling form, jerkily twisting its way through the abandoned cars below.

Grimly, Sokka heads down the stairs, feet wedged against the edge of each step in order to minimise the chance of creaks. He had slept for about six hours before his rude awakening. That was plenty of time for anyone or anything to slip unnoticed into this quiet house, with its door open and ajar. The tripwires were good for peace of mind, but they were no replacement for a deadlock.

Eyes flashing back and forth, he steals out of the house and deftly steps into the street.

The sun is just beginning to rise, its golden fingers staining the sky a deep purple. The morning would be almost serene save for the dead man shuffling across the road thirty yards away. Its head lolls to one side like a confused child.

Sokka can barely dare to breathe.

This was a young one by the looks of it - skin grey, but not yet flaking off - not to mention the screams. Only the recently turned tend to still have breath left in their lungs.

Shit.

If there is a young one, that means there is always, always a nest nearby. It isn’t exactly rocket science. They only become like this one way, and it isn’t when a mummy and daddy zombie love each other very much. He needs to eliminate this one before it calls the rest of the swarm to it. And more importantly, to him.

Sokka inches his way across the shingle-strewn tarmac. He keeps his shoulders pressed down into their sockets - your body has to be calm, there’s no room for flighty twitches or fear-triggered reflexes when a single noise can set the dead on you like a homing missile.

One foot forwards.

Then the next.

Follow its weaving path around the abandoned cars, doors flung wide open and criss-crossed around the street. Breathe through the mouth, it’s quieter that way by far than the messy whistle of inhalation through the nostrils.

The zombie stops. Sokka can’t see it, but hears its leaden feet crunching to a halt around the other side of a van.

He draws his blade in front of him, knife pointing diagonally out into the dark.

Breathes.

And rounds the corner, face to face with a bizarre tableaux. The zombie stands still, head twisting from side to side at that repulsive angle like a lost sniffer dog, toe to toe with a man. A living man. A man whose breaths are visible in the cold air. A man who blinked carefully, deliberately, in the face of a monster.

It’s impossible.

Sokka stumbles, just slightly, at the shock of the sight of another person. But it’s enough. The zombie whirls around, its head dragged along like a bag of rocks, and launches for Sokka. He leaps out the way, brings the knife up and plunges it deep into the dead man’s throat.

His blade slices through the pallid flesh and brittle bones, and the head crunches backwards. Sokka twists the knife and, with a calculated shove, cuts it clean off. The head falls, bloodless and hollow.

The body remains standing for a painfully long half-second, before collapsing to its knees, its strings cut.

“Why would you do that?” The stranger bites out, voice cracked and deep with disuse.

Sokka freezes. He takes in the man in front of him.

He’s tall, dark haired, face covered in a half mask of grubby bandages wrapped firmly around his left eye. He’s wearing a pack, dark clothes and an ice-cold expression that burns Sokka where he stands. He has no visible weapon. His eyes are gaunt. Sokka stares at him, unable to move.

It’s utterly impossible.

“I said,” eyes flash, “why would you do that?”

Sokka stammers. “It would have killed us.”

His mind spins. He’s exchanging words with another person. This can’t be happening - another living, breathing, human person. Sokka feels like he is floating a few feet above his body. He’s talking. To a person.

“You provoked it - it would have killed you.” The man glares. “I was fine.”

This breaks Sokka out of his reverie. “Fuck you. I saved our lives, asshole.”

The stranger jerks forward, eyes wild. “I didn’t ask you to do that.” A pause. “How are you alive?”

“What? The same way you are,” Sokka says. “Luck? Divine fortune? How am I meant to know.”

They stare at each other for a moment - and then a moment more - inhaling deep breaths in tandem. Sokka can’t seem to stop looking at him. It’s too dark to see the other man’s eye colour, but they’re too light to be brown. He stands tall, bearing almost military, ramrod straight. He has no weapon. He was content to stare death in the eyes. He is ice-cold and snappish. And Sokka can imagine the pulse of his heart beating in his throat, obstinately alive.

And suddenly, Sokka hates the man. Hates him for standing there proud and scared. Hates him for being another human face. Being something Sokka has wanted for so long, and yet fixes absolutely nothing. This helps nothing. He wouldn’t get his sister back. Sokka’s just another broken piece of crap in this hellscape of a world who is alive for no godforsaken reason. And in front of him stands another piece of crap. And they are both so useless.

Sokka wants to scream.

Instead, he asks brusquely, “What’s your deal?”

For the first time in their brief encounter, the man looks thrown.

“My deal?” the stranger repeats.

“You know, your deal. Your story.” Sokka jabs his knife in the air, punctuating his questions. “Why are you here of all places? What are you looking for?”

The man rubs his upper arm. It makes him look oddly small. “Why do you think I’m looking for something?”

Sokka snorts, and finally relaxes the grip on his knife. The man’s eyes track his movements as he stashes it back in its holster. “It’s the apocalypse, everyone’s looking for something.”

He appraises the man - his face is impossible to read behind the dirt and bandages, but his stance is nervous. “Some people are looking for a new community, some to vent their existential rage, some,” he pauses, just for a moment, “aren’t looking to live any more.”

The man doesn’t react.

Sokka rambles on, needing to fill the silence. “Me? I’m looking for my sister, see. We weren’t together when-” he gestures expansively, “-everything happened. So I’m trying to get back to her.”

The man considers this, mouth parted, preparing the words sitting on his tongue.

“I’m just looking.” He offers at last. “For life, I guess.”

What kind of an answer is that?

He can’t do this any more. Barging past him, Sokka says. “There’ll be a nest nearby, you better move. I can guarantee you won’t be finding life in this backend.”

Fuming, he sets off down the road, his back to the man and the crumpled carcass laying between them. Who in the ever-living-fuck does this guy think he is?

The only person Sokka has spoken to in a far too long time, is who.

He feels his paces slow, his body pausing, and now he hates himself too. Weak. That’s what he is.

“You coming, then?” he spits over his shoulder, barely turning around.

The man doesn't reply, but after a moment, Sokka hears him turn and begin to follow. The two walk like that down the ruins of the suburb - Sokka in front, the main trailing a few feet behind.

Sokka realizes he doesn't know the man's name.

_Twenty five months, two weeks and six days._


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> forever and always huge love to @voicefullofmoney for her fab beta-ing and putting up with my nonsense

Life changes less than he’d thought it would, now that there are two of them.

Sure, the dirty work takes half as long. They can sweep houses with precision and watch the road from two directions when they walk. The added peace of mind of sleeping in shifts, (though Sokka still has to stifle the instinctual panic he feels when he wakes with another humanoid in view) is a blessing. The stranger knows how to work quietly, which scraps are worth taking from the carved-out places they rest in, which types of ground muffles the sound of your piss as it lands. So at least Sokka doesn't have to worry in that regard.

They barely speak for three days.

It’s late, and they’re holed up in a stripped-out building, that was probably once a house. The town is so tiny it barely spans more than a couple of roads, but it’s just as trashed as any of the cities Sokka has visited.

They’re sitting opposite one another on the floor of the front room. Sokka wants to talk so badly. His skin vibrates and shoulders twitch, words buzzing on the tip of his tongue. But every time he tries to strike up a conversation, he chokes.

This was all so absurd, so utterly pointless - the two of them finding each other here. He’s sitting on a dusty pink carpet in a chintzy little living room across from a man he can’t even speak to, a man he invited along into this shit heap of a life, and for what?

There’s this constant pressure to be doing something to make the most of this bizarre companion he’s found. Two survivors teaming up to save the day. That’s just the plot of every B-list disaster movie, isn’t it? Shitty quips and tank tops is something Sokka can handle. Not this. Maybe they’ll go down in a blaze of glory, grenades and all, as Katara wrestles the cure from the Big Bad Guy’s grip. Maybe they’ll be whisked away in a helicopter to the one place this disease hasn’t touched and people can do whatever they want; hugging their sister; watching a crap movie with friends; not being on high-alert 100% of the time.

Instead, Sokka watches the other man, and he is paralysed.

For his part, the other man is stoic and surly, and so nothing passed between them but the occasional grunt and single word command as their only communication. Restless, Sokka shifts from his position tucked to the wall and watching the dark street. The other man’s eyes flick towards the movement before settling back down to gaze at the floor.

Sokka clears his throat. The phlegm sticks a little. “What’s your name?”

The man freezes. “Why?”

Words spill out of Sokka, the dam now broken. “Because there’s no good reason why not to? I’m not exactly going to be stealing your security details.”

The man doesn’t respond, only pinches his lips together in a very young gesture.

Sokka tries again. “I’m Sokka. And it would be nice to know what to call you, if we’re ever in danger. If not, I can always make up a name myself. How about Lee? It’s common enough. One of the most common names in the world, actually. Though that might be as a surname.”

The man stares up at him, face impassive. The bandages around his face are starting to fray.

“Not a fan of Lee then? That’s fair enough, you don’t seem like one. You need something more mysterious. Who was the main character in ‘Wind through the Bamboo Leaves’? Mako? Mateo? Something with that kind of shape to the word anyway.”

The man remains impassive. Apparently traipsing through the literal apocalypse together isn’t a good enough reason for him to open up to Sokka. Not that Sokka doesn’t get it. He does. Sokka is annoying and sarcastic and noisy and useless and weak and-

“Zuko.”

Sokka is thrown for a moment. “Say what?”

“My name.” The man - Zuko - says haltingly. “It’s Zuko.”

“Well then, nice to meet you Zuko.”

Zuko turns away, but his cheek is lifted in a smile.

-.-

Later that night, Sokka awakens to Zuko furiously shaking his shoulders, his eyes wild and lips pressed tight.

Sokka is all action. “Where is it?” he whispers.

Zuko knows what he means. “Not a zombie - worse.” He shoves Sokka’s pack into his arms. “We have to go. Now.”

The apocalypse is a move first, ask questions later kind of deal. But this doesn’t stop Sokka’s mind bubbling in confusion.

Zuko hauls them out the back of the building, through the old side gate. The path outside is littered with cigarettes and bags of rotting rubbish left over after humanity’s last bin collection.

The place is crawling with armed soldiers in black uniforms. They criss-cross across the street ahead of them, kicking down doors and scoping out the interiors like a well-oiled machine. They don’t seem to care about the amount of noise they’re making, and that is by far the scariest part of this. If Sokka were a betting man, he’d put three meals on these people not being his knights in shining armour, come to sweep him away to safety. Rule number one of the zombie apocalypse: no one here to help you. Sokka doesn’t fancy risking his chances by waving the white flag and then getting shot to pieces by a paramilitary squadron.

There’s an odd whirring sound that seems to be getting louder.

“Down!” Zuko hisses, and Sokka sees it now. A helicopter is sweeping high above their heads, circling around the dark sky. The two of them slam their backs against the brick wall next to a seeping refuse bag.

_Don’t look at me, I’m just trash._

The only ways out of this alley are: a) back into the house, which is approximately 30 seconds from being raided, b) out into the main street and in plain sight, or; c) scaling the chain link fence at the rear of the alley that leads into the yards and back gardens. It’s an easy choice to make.

They lock eyes for one brief moment. Zuko’s irises are a searing gold, Sokka hadn’t noticed that before.

A nod.

Sokka scrambles down the alleyway before bracing his back against the fence. It rattles as Sokka bounces into it, and he panics just momentarily, grabbing at the links in an attempt to quieten them, before cupping his hands in front of him and boosting Zuko up. The chain-links rattle, loud against their tense breaths.

A man in the distance shouts.

Fuck.

Zuko hops off the top of the fence and lands on the shingled ground. Sokka has to move. He backs up down the alleyway before leaping up the fence as far as he can reach. Plants his foot as high as he can make it, before pushing up with all his strength to grab at the top with both hands.

The shouts are getting louder.

He swings his other foot up, just managing to hook his heel over the top. The fence sways and he begins to panic a little now. Desperately, he pulls himself up with his arms and hooked leg until he straddles the fence. He looks over and sees Zuko waiting for him.

The beams of the soldiers’ torches shoot across the ground at the top of the alley.

“Sokka, jump!”

With a final push, he swings his other leg over, leaps and lands. Hard. His left knee burns, a white-hot torch underneath his skin, but he doesn’t have time to waste by coddling it. Zuko grabs his hand and pulls him round the corner as the glass door of the building smashes and the soldiers pour in.

“Can you run?” Zuko is crouching in front of him, pressing him into the back wall of the building. The rattles of the fence linger in the night air.

Sokka presses his weight down through his left leg and almost collapses, hissing in pain. That’s a _no_ then.

Zuko slings an arm around Sokka’s waist, pulling his weight onto him. They look like they're getting ready for a three-legged race.

"We need to get out of here." They’re so close together now that Sokka feels a puff of air against his cheek with each word Zuko says.

They lurch forward, bodies clamped together. Sokka huffs, “Believe me, I’m open to suggestions.”

“There’s a multi-storey car park on the other side of this block. There may be some vehicles left over we could take?”

Shaking his head, Sokka says through gritted teeth. “No can do, buddy.”

Zuko bristles, “Why not?”

The ground crunches underfoot, shingle sent skittering away at each step. They hug against the back of the building, but even still, it’s too exposed here.

They’re being too loud. Sokka registers this on a base level but is too focused on planning to properly take notice.

“Easy, first the noise,” he explains. “Not only will a car be telegraphing our location massively (they have a helicopter, no way are they missing us speeding off into the sunrise), but these soldier boys will have woken up any zombies that may have been dozing nearby, so believe me, an echoey-ass car park? Not the place I want to be.”

Sokka huffs a pained breath. He doesn’t even need to look at his knee to know how swollen it’s getting.

“Secondly, how are you proposing we actually drive one of these? On the off chance we find a car that’s battery isn’t dead, we’ve got to actually get it going. Hot-wiring isn’t as easy as it looks in the movies. It’s not a magic ‘ _touch two wires and the car springs into life_ ’ jobby.”

The look Zuko shoots him could melt ice. “It was only a suggestion,” he grinds out. “What would you suggest then, oh wise one?”

“Best thing I can think of at the moment? Circle back. Chances are they won’t search all the buildings they’ve already looked in again. If we can camp out somewhere they already think is safe, we should be able to wait them out.”

Zuko looks like he wants to drop him. “You want to go back there? Just stroll past the paramilitary core with helicopters and fucking machine guns on the off chance they won’t check any of these buildings again?”

“Do you happen to have any better ideas? Aside from trying to hot-wire a car and yelling “eat my dust” at a paramilitary core?”

They’ve both drawn to a halt. Panting for breath from the strain of dragging his left leg into a limp, he stares Zuko down. The sun is hours from dawning, and the alleyway is shaded from the searchlights by the buildings on either side. But even in the low light, Zuko’s eyes glow like gold.

“Fine!” Zuko hisses.

“Fine.”

They turn and limp back the way they came.

-.-

They hole up in an old clothes shop for hours. It’s been stripped completely bare of its goods, but there are still some mannequins lying around. Apparently no one’s found a use for them yet.

They’re ducked underneath the old counter, legs pressed against one another. It’s to the rear of the shop and is blocked from sight by a wall of bins for hangers and labels.

The sun rises, and the shouts from outside die down.

It’s funny seeing Zuko squished up like this. He’s tall enough that his limbs look comedically gangly as they scrunch into the confined space. Sokka feels a little mean for dominating the space by stretching his knee out in front of him, but even after a while of rest it throbs hotly through his trousers. Besides, it’s cold here, so Sokka lets himself enjoy the warmth of another body pressed against him.

Sokka estimates it's about noon when his stomach starts to gurgle. It’s been quiet for a few hours now and while it is a good idea to hide out for as long as possible, they would need to move eventually. He locks eyes with Zuko, before raising his eyebrows and twisting his head to nod at the outside world. Zuko understands.

A little awkwardly, they untangle their limbs and haul themselves out from under the counter.

"You should bandage that up." Zuko gestures to Sokka's knee.

His knee isn't great, but he can stand on it now. The rest seems to have done it a little good at least.

Without waiting for a reply, Zuko fishes a roll of bandage out of his backpack and lobs it over to Sokka.

He catches it without thinking. "I- thanks."

Zuko turns away sharply and strides off to the front of the store to peek out the windows.

Winding the bandage around his knee is a good excuse for Sokka to not follow Zuko’s movements with eyes, or notice how he anxiously rubs his thumb with his index finger as he peers out into the street. It just might take him a few moments to start wrapping his knee up, for completely normal apocalypse reasons, of course.

As Sokka rejoins Zuko by the front doors, he is proud to find he can hobble by himself now. It’s slow, and a little clunky, but none of that matters in the face of being self-sufficient.

Zuko, satisfied that the coast is clear, swings their bags onto his back and they step out into the sunshine.

The day is quiet and the sky is heavy with clouds as they make their way back up the road.

However, he stops dead when he sees the patch of road in front of the building they ran from last night.

It’s empty of soldiers, Sokka can be glad of that. No zombies either, thank the lord for small miracles. Instead, the road is covered with one word written over and over in a deranged scrawl: Zuko.

 _Zuko **Zuko** Zuk **o Z**_ **u** ko Zuk _o Zuko Zu_ ko Z **uko** _ **Zuko Z** uko Z_uko **Zuko** Z **u** k **o** Zuko Zu _ko **Zu** ko Zu **ko**_ Zuk _o Zu_ ko _**Zuko** Zuk **o Z** **u**_ ko Zu _ko **Zuko** Z **u** k **o** Zuko Z **uko** **Zuko Z** uko _

Sokka turns to Zuko. “What the fuck is this?”

He just gapes a little, eyes frozen still, staring at the road ahead of them.

“This,” he says finally, “is the work of my little sister.”


End file.
